Elsie Riley has served customers at the Bovine Bakery for almost as long as the bakery itself has been open, forging friendships and relationships with countless locals and visitors along the way. Now, after 24 years, Ms. Riley is stepping down from her post as she prepares for surgery on both shoulders. “I thought, ‘Maybe it’s time,’” she said.
One afternoon in 1991, Ms. Riley, who now lives in Petaluma, swung by the bakery, then about two years old. “I drove here, had a cup of coffee and I thought, ‘Someday I’m going to work here,’” she recalled. Bridget Devlin, the bakery’s owner, said she was an immediate fit. “We nabbed her,” she said. “And she’s had a fan club ever since.”
As a counter person—or “ambassador,” as Ms. Devlin puts it—Ms. Riley was at the helm of the bakery, serving customers, tending to the outdoor planters and sweeping the floors. “She’s one of those people who really cares about the place in a visual sense,” Ms. Devlin said.
Ms. Riley had worked for 30 years in hospice care, as a grief counselor, and the experience informed her work at the Bovine. “Just listening to people when they talked,” she said. “Regulars are just very open with me—they always have been—and I learned a lot of patience, humility, goodness and kindness from people.”
Early on, in an effort to remember her regulars, Ms. Riley crafted a book of their names, using physical descriptions and rhyming words. “I wanted to make [the job] really personable,” she said.
In the mid-1990s, Ms. Riley, who had recently been widowed, was approached by one of her regular customers with the prospect of romance. “A customer said, ‘I met the man for you,’” she said. “He walked in and I would say it was love at first sight.”
Don Dudley, a Point Reyes Station artist who worked in advertising, and Ms. Riley would remain partners until he died in 2005. “It was just wonderful,” she said. “I was really lucky.”
Outside of her work, Ms. Riley creates sculptures with discarded items, including junk her customers bring her. (She said that tradition doesn’t have to end with her retirement. “They can leave them here, call me and I’ll come get them!” she said.) She also is part of an Italian-conversation group that she and three customers started 13 years ago, which meets every Friday, sometimes at the park next door. Ms. Riley has made multiple trips to Italy and intends to go back, possibly later this year, depending on how her recovery goes.
Last Friday, during Ms. Riley’s final day at the bakery, a windy draft began to blow in while customers shuffled in line. Ms. Riley leaped across the room to shut the door. In the process, her eyes greeted a familiar second homeowner—“I’m a fair weather friend,” he said—and the two shared a laugh together.
“I just can’t tell you how nice it is to work here and to meet all the people who come in,” Ms. Riley said. “I think you get what you put out.”